


Black Porcelain

by JestaAriadne (still_intrepid)



Category: Cats - Andrew Lloyd Webber
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Social Isolation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-11-20
Updated: 2001-11-20
Packaged: 2019-05-21 00:07:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14904740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_intrepid/pseuds/JestaAriadne
Summary: Back when I came into the fandom there was a fair amount of "Cassandra hate" - or anyway, she was always the first choice of a character to be a foil or the bad guy messing up other people's relationships...I thought: so she looks different, she sticks out, she acts aloof and proud,and is the perfect author avatar for teenage angst; so what?  let's try and see things from her point of view.





	Black Porcelain

**Author's Note:**

> (ALL THE TEENAGE ANGST WITH A (slightly contrived) HAPPY END.)
> 
> (Inspired, as everyone surely was at the time, by Yuffie V's 'Satin Dolls'....)

She doesn't seem real. She's that plain and that pretty. A little human girl with blonde hair in two plump pig tails and blue eyes. She's skipping along holding a porcelain doll in one hand. She's talking to it, her silly, sing-song voice rising and falling almost every word.

Nauseatingly sweet.

"Come on Jessica, time to go home. Shall we bake a cake when we get home, would you like that?"

The doll stares up with those same blue glass eyes. Rosebud lips stuck in a permanent painful smile. Perfectly placed goldenrod hair half covered by a dignified bonnet; exactly the same tasteful lilac as her starched frock. Heaviside, she must feel trapped.

Skipping along, swinging her arms. I know what's going to happen before it does. Maybe I'm taking after my namesake. I can't help but feel a little sad for that perfect child, growing up as a porcelain doll. And "Jessica" slips from her fingers. Flies a foot or so in the air. Falls and cracks on the pavement. Damned azure eyes still staring up in wonder from the broken lily face.

And she doesn't cry. Neither of them do. The little girl bends down silently and picks up the pieces. Then she runs down the street and around the corner without so much as a sigh.

Maybe she'll get home and sob, collapse on her crisp lilac patterned bedspread and cry for the loss of a doll. Will her dear Mama come and comfort her- or reproach her for her carelessness? Who knows. Who cares? I shouldn't really, should I? I don't.

But when there's nothing else to care about, or so much to worry about that it becomes a dead mass and completely opaque, it doesn't seem that strange to sit at the window and watch other people's lives and pretend to care, for all it counts for. It doesn't last long after all; I don't think I really care about anyone or anything.

No human ever notices me watching them. Rarely even other cats. I'm just sitting on the red velvet cushion of the window seat staring out. Ever get the feeling that you're at the wrong end of the world? I can only watch it go by; I'm not stupid enough to try and be part of anything. I'll collect other people's lives and perhaps make a nice little pastiche of them for myself to escape from my own perfection.

Red velvet. Crisp lilac. Maybe Jessica understands. After all, am I any more than a doll? _What a beautiful cat you have, Mrs Jenkins._ Life on a display stand, life on a velvet cushion, what's the difference? I've been outside; I've had another small child say to me "Hey little kitty, would you like to play?" As if I'd ever... cats do not - should not - play. Beyond those embarrassing and fleeting moments of kittenhood, we are fit only to be admired. Because if we don't; if we go the other way- "playing", taking our chances in the world.... well, Jessica knows about that. There's the risk of knocking your dignified bonnet askew on some iron railing- there's the danger of mussing your perfect fur and then what would they think? And of course there's always the cold grey pavement below, ready for you should you miss your footing, should you trust anyone too much and be let down. It's not safe.

Better safe than sorry.

 

* * * * *

 

They're poor and stupid and so damn lucky. Even their names are laughing. And always together. Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer. MungoandRumpel, JerrieandTeazer- inseparable and invincible. They're rolling in the dust on the dry ground and laughing hysterically at nothing. I'm lying on a tyre, feigning sleep, as per usual. Among the other cats I tend to fade into the background and I'm not exactly eager to stick myself out if it means rolling in the mud. I couldn't do that, could I? What would they all think of me?

But when is anyone exactly likely to think anything of me, anything about me? _At least that way no one can think anything bad. It's safe. Better safe than sorry._ Bombalurina is noticed. She's talked about. Red flame setting all those toms' hearts ablaze, to torture a cliché further... And the fire blazes out and it can't be ignored or extinguished. But I am not her. I am black porcelain, classically beautiful should you care to ever look, but so fragile I must be hidden and kept For Display Only. Don't touch, you might break something.

 

* * * * *

 

She's pretty enough I suppose, as humans go. Her clothes are always prim and pressed, hair meticulously neat. She's got a high clipped voice and a smile as bright and brittle as ice. We don't exactly talk much. Oh, she certainly takes care of me- or pays for people to do it for her. I think I've become a status symbol. My velvet cushion, all that high quality food that tastes like dust and cardboard, my fur neatly dressed once a week, all fit for such an exquisite - and expensive - pure-breed as myself. _What a beautiful cat you have, Mrs Jenkins._ Well, I suppose something had to compensate for that name.

She plays the piano. Not badly, I suppose, but she plays like she smiles. She sits down and clears her throat as if she's going to sing, or talk, maybe even to me, but only her fingers move now, picking out the beginning of the piece on the music stand. Haydn. C major. Painfully bright and so dull. A predictable modulation to G, back to C, there was maybe even an A _minor_ chord in there somewhere.... Musical clichés. And she's playing perfectly, fingers running lightly up and down the keyboard. But only her fingers move. It's dead music. A cheery little tune carefully balanced over a sparkling baseline of persistent little triplets, but it's so pretty and plain that it's not real. And she's playing it far too perfectly.

I'm so confused I'm thinking in paradoxes.

 

* * * * *

 

"Cassandra?"

Someone's talking to me. It happens sometimes... In fact, it's two someones. It's Coricopat and Tantomile. They're another one of those pairs, never one without the other. These two seem to absolutely depend on each other. It's pathetic really. I don't need anyone else to survive.

I raise my head slowly. That's as much acknowledgement as you can expect. Maybe- I should be more open and all that, but it's just not how I am and why should I risk the change?

They're not saying anything, and that makes me a little uneasy. I'm the only silent witness here. And so most cats' reactions are awkward, burbling spurts of small talk and then a polite backing away. I think I set them on edge somehow. But these two are not on edge or afraid.

I am.

"What is it?" I snap. My voice is a hard sharp sound, closer perhaps to a nervous Pollicle's bark than the usual and expected dignified purr.

Undaunted, or at least she pretends to be. "Would you like to come on a mouse hunt this evening? Just for fun."

Tantomile seems to hardly move her mouth when she speaks. Delicate silver whiskers twitch as a small smile is born. She's being friendly and inviting. They think it's time someone drew me out of my shell and tried to "give her a chance" or "be nice to the poor girl". I've heard Jennyanydots talk about me. Some people never give up do they? You can try being deadly cold and unresponsive, or I've even shouted at her to just leave me alone; always provokes her pity- clearly there's something wrong with me, and of course it can't be my own fault, I've probably been badly treated... Can't they just leave me be?

Maybe Jenny put them up to this. Either way, there's no question about my answer. "No, I have other plans." Smoothly. I'm back in control, my own sophisticated, perfect, lifeless smile grows as Tantomile's face crumples.

And her brother lays a gentle paw on her back before they turn away. She's too easily hurt, maybe as delicate as me. Porcelain. But she asks for it. Pathetic girl.

 

* * * * *

 

Her name's Mrs Jenkins as I've said, but she doesn't have a husband. She did yesterday. As far as I could see, they never paid any attention to each other. He certainly never paid any attention to me. But now that he's gone, she's suddenly madly in love again and alternatively crying or just sitting and staring. It makes a change to see a human just sit and stare.

 _I'm ever so sorry, Mrs Jenkins. He was a good man._ That's what they say now. Every dead Indian's a good Indian... Must have picked up that god-awful cliché somewhere... I'm unchanged. And I can't realise the truth somehow. _This time something should matter..._ I'm as detached as usual, apart from this time I do know that I shouldn't be.

The piano's lid is down. No more cheery Haydn for a while, I'd guess. She's sitting on the sofa, long black dress an ugly contrast with the peach cushions. It'll be creasing something dreadful. All in black. She's not even taken her bonnet off. Pinched white face, always tight and now looking ready to tear to pieces. Her smile is smashed forever. She sits there, staring out of the window, watching the world pass by and wondering why it doesn't stop just for a moment to let her past.

A trembling hand travels once more to her throat and strokes the strings of tiny coloured beads hanging there. Unfocused eyes staring at nothing, or trying to catch a glimpse of something invisible. I don't think I've seen her wear those beads before. They're pretty tasteless really; the gaudy rainbow strands would look better on a little girl with blonde pigtails who can only live for trinkets and dolls.... And yet she touches them with loving and longing fingers.

...poor woman... Is this pity? I mew softly.

"Cassandra?" she whispers, her usually piercing voice dulled by tears.

I slide gracefully from the window seat and walk over to her. She scoops me up into her lap. She's going to get cat hairs all over her mourning outfit and I don't think she even cares. And she's crying again.

"God, Cassandra... it's just you now.... What am I going to do?" Reduced to such a cliché... poor woman... she's bowed her head, face buried in her hands, and wispy hair tumbles from the starched bonnet, tickling the back of my neck. She's cold. No one's lit the fire of course. I want to warm her and bring her back. _Just me now..._ I'm supposed to look after this poor woman, now little more than a heartbroken girl. What is she going to do?

I don't know! I don't know! And I shouldn't care. I'm not compassionate, am I? I am only a china ornament, an augmentation to aristocracy after all! I can't - I musn't pity. No one deserves my pity. And I don't deserve to be changed like this.

The sunset flames on the window pane, igniting the myriad of glass beads with a desperate light. A pretty necklace really... Just plain pretty, nothing more or less. And it's challenging me. Another tear falls onto my bent head. Drops of sorrow, poison darts, cleansing rainfall...

But of course it can't hurt me or change me or wash away what I am because whatever pathetic hand of fate wrote me into this parody called life did so with indelible ink. Black porcelain. Ever noticed how cold china always is? And I really don't care.

My dark paw swishes swiftly upwards. Manicured claws slash through the rivulet of light and the rainbow shatters. It's an explosion of brilliance as thousands of little glass beads fly outwards. Thousands of little glass beads like toxic mercury bouncing on the dark wood floor: another rainfall.

And it's only then I realise she's sobbing. Great choking wails mixed with the most heartrending screams. Must have been a special necklace then. Maybe a present from - someone.

Too bad.

She shoves me off her lap roughly - she'd never do that! she can't be thinking She's plunged to the floor and is scrambling around on her knees. That'll be ruining her dress for sure. Striving for all those ideals, desperately trying to piece together the splintered kaleidoscope, searching for every last bead. Howling like - like nothing else, like only to what she is - a pitiful woman who's lost her love and who's been torn to the heart again by the pathetic creature she turned to for comfort.

We're all so pathetic and pitiful. Is there no one who can pity us?

 

* * * * *

What have I done? It's not the anguished, wounded cry: how could I? I'm not exactly given to fits of remorse. I'm just suddenly asking that question in its simplest sense. A smiling Victoria and Tugger have just disappeared into a broken pipe together. Oh Victoria, I thought you were better than that... Or I didn't really. Should have known. But at least she's done something, felt she's achieved something. What have I ever done? In my whole pathetic, pitiful, pitiless life I've hardly done anything. I just watch as others _do_. And I've tried to ruin a couple lives I suppose. But I'm not given to fits of remorse so this shouldn't bother me.

And I don't even know if it does or not.

But I've never done anything worthwhile. Someone up there is laughing at me, I'm sure. Either that or weeping at the futility of it all. I don't think I could weep if I tried. There's no point in it, it's so weak and silly- and of course, they can hear you if you cry. That's what I'm afraid of.

I'm afraid, OK?!

I'm afraid to risk it, to let anyone see me, to be anything more than the cold lifeless ornament I hate so much.

The sun is warming my tyre. My stupid black fur of course is becoming unbearably hot. I think Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer have run off to jump in someone's garden pond, not a care in the world for what they'll look like afterwards. _Stupid and so damn lucky._ Everyone is stupid except for me, I suppose. I'm the only one who really understands how useless this is, but I'm trapped.

Maybe I'm underestimating them.

Maybe I wish I was like them.

I never can be though. Porcelain's too beautiful and delicate. And I have to be porcelain, don't I? I wouldn't want to revert to cheap prettiness of rainbow glass, for all it shines in the sun. I've got to be proud of something, even if it is that I'm the most pathetic creature in the world.

If I could weep... I'd cry for that poor woman who's breaking her heart every minute she can, staring at his dead face in the photo album and a pot of beads. I'd cry for Jessica and that perfect child, whoever she was. I'd cry for Tantomile and Jenny and everyone else who's met me. Me. The most pathetic of them all, without a purpose, scared to so much as pity, and proud of it all. If only I could weep.

Never thought I'd be so weak. But I've always been delicate. Is there such a difference?

"Cassandra?"

Heaviside, not now... _Some people never give up do they?_ It's just Coricopat this time. Strong enough without his other half, is he now?

"Yes." It's merely a sigh, but at least it's an assent. I don't know what he expected and frankly, as usual, I don't care.

"I've never heard you say more than five words together, you know."

What sort of comment is that? Maybe I'd laugh, but that that seems as far removed from possibility as weeping.

"Sorry if that offends you."

"Five again."

What's he think he's playing at? "What do you want this time?"

"Six!" He's grinning triumphantly. "I knew you could do it!"

"Damn it, Coricopat! Haven't you got anything better to do?"

"Cassandra, I want to talk to you."

"Go ahead." This is probably the longest "conversation" I've had in months.

"And I want you to talk to me."

"You must be bored."

His face contorts as his eyes close for a moment as if in pain. "We don't all hate you, you know."

 _They've got every reason to..._ Why won't they? At least that would give me something to fight... I make no reply.

"We all want to help you, really we do. If you'd just let us tr-"

"No! It's "we" and "you" like you said. None of you can help, I'm on my own here, OK? Heaviside, I don't _need_ your help!" I'm shouting now and I can hear how desperate I sound. Why did he have to do this? _Why won't they leave me alone?_ I make an undignified scramble to my feet and leap dizzily off the tyre. Coricopat pounces and practically pins me to the ground.

"Cassandra!" For Heaviside's sake, my face is only a few inches away from his; he doesn't need to yell. "Cassandra, please hear me out!"

I shrug. What does it matter? I don't care what he says, since nothing can ever change this is just a new way to waste my time.

Now he's got my attention, he doesn't seem too sure of what he's going to say. "Well?" I ask, as icily as I can.

"What is it _you_ want, Cassandra?"

"I want to be left alone."

"Why?"

He doesn't seem in any hurry to let me up, and I honestly can't be bothered to push him off me. But neither am I prepared to reply to that question... though the answer is screaming itself in my head. _I'm scared, OK? I'm so terrified of being hurt that I can never open up or trust or love or live or do anything that someone might see. I really am sorry I can't talk to you Heaviside- I really am sorry!_ I _am sorry for so much! ...what's changed?... Why do I care?_

" _Why_?" He repeats. "You're not happy, I can tell you're not, so why won't you just let people help?"

Not happy? There speaks a genius. Of course I'm not happy, but..."Better safe than sorry," I mutter.

"What...?" But he heard me. I've told him. He's looking at me too deep and I know that he's starting to understand me. Then he shakes his head hard. "No. That's not true."

"How would you know?"

"I-"

"See?" I start to babble desperately. "You can't tell me that. You don't know anything about it! You can't say that because you don't know and you can't understand-"

He cuts me off this time. "I don't understand because you won't tell me! You don't want anyone to understand you, do you?"

He thinks so. He thinks he can comprehend at least that part of me. And I should know he's right.

But I don't.

I really am sorry. I do want to tell him. Tell him what?

"Anything," he whispers, "Just say something to me, Cassandra, something true."

Did he just read my mind? So what if he did? "It's too late! Don't you get it? I can't change now, I can't..."

"Don't cry..." He's as surprised as I am.

"I'm - not - " I am. I'm crying. Then something's changed.

He stands up. Is he just going to leave me lying here and crying? I'm broken. I'm no longer beautiful. I'm lying in the dust and my tears are shining like cheap glass beads. I'm no longer safe.

And I don't want him to leave.

"If you're interested, Tantomile and I are going hunting again tonight. You're welcome to come to."

"I'd- like that." I have to say it quickly before I can change my mind. The black porcelain is broken and it's time to find out if there's anything else in me at all. I'm no longer safe, but I'm no longer trapped. Heaviside, I'm free! I can choose freely- anything.... I'll trust him. I've got to. I guess I'll always be- shy, but I've made a start. It's a first step.

And I've got the whole world to explore.

Coricopat's smile is like a sudden sunrise. I guess I surprised him too. And I've stopped crying.

He pounces on me again and I feel like Rumpelteazer. I laugh. I laugh! It's my turn at last to be stupid and lucky. I'm not going to be scared anymore. I'm going to trust, I'm going to care. It's not too late, there's always time for us. I'm not alone anymore.

Better late than never.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written in 2001 and archived here in 2018 in case of accidents ^.^
> 
> Comments and reaction are still welcome, on all of these, but this is one of the ones in particular where I would plead it was a _very_ long time ago!


End file.
